Many organizations track information about themselves and their members, and use that information for a variety of purposes. For example, business organizations will typically track payroll-related information about employees (e.g., their salaries and Social Security Numbers), and may also track other work-related information for at least some employees (e.g., their current work positions and various biographical information such as accomplishments and degrees). Organizations increasingly employ various software applications to assist in the tracking of such information, as well as with the managing of interactions between the organization and other parts of the enterprise (e.g., customers, partners, suppliers, distributors, employees, etc.).
While organizations will occasionally store limited information about the competencies of their members (e.g., a list of members that are trained in CPR or that speak a particular foreign language), such organizations do not typically track and use such information in an organized and integrated manner so as to provide significant benefits to the organization or to its members. For example, organizations do not typically track a full range of competencies of differing types for it members, nor do they typically track a history of changes in members' competencies. Moreover, organizations do not typically track missing competencies that have been identified for members, nor use such information to assist the members in improving their current competencies.
In some organizations, members may be able to supply limited information about their own competencies, and in some circumstances such member-supplied information may be available to others. However, member-supplied information that merely represents a subjective assessment by a member of their own competencies may be of little use to others. For example, others will have difficulty in determining whether the member-supplied information suffers from unintentional or intentional inaccuracies. Moreover, even if each member provides self-assessment information about their competencies that they believe to be accurate, it will be difficult for others to compare members' relative self-assessed competencies, as each member may use different descriptions for similar competencies (e.g., “public speaking” versus “oral communication ability”), may use different rating types (e.g., one member using ratings of “low”, “medium” and “high”, while another member uses a scale from 1 to 5) and/or may correlate similar abilities to different rating levels.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to track a variety of competency-related information for individuals such as members of organizations, and to use such information to provide various benefits to the individuals and/or organizations. For example, it would be beneficial to provide mechanisms for gathering self-assessed competency information from individuals in a standardized manner and for independently approving such self-assessment information in various ways.